Wannes Van de Velde is known in Flanders above all as bard and lyric writer, much less as a composer. However, Wannes and his companions (Walter Heynen for example, just to name one) have written many brilliant compositions that needed no lyrics to be outstanding.

Jokke Schreurs and his musicians wanted to highlight this little-known aspect of Wannes’ repertoire. With their project 'Wannes meets Django', they want to demonstrate that the institution Wannes Van de Velde has issued such strong musical compositions that they can become jazz standards on their own, alongside those of Duke, Django, Cole Porter or Gershwin. They also hope in this way to raise awareness of the qualities as a composer of the singer-songwriter-troubadour. Jokke Schreurs is known as a guitarist and interpreter of Django’s music, and from now on, also of Wannes’ music. Jokke played among others with Warre Borgmans, Tanguedia, Miel Cools and Guido Belcanto as well as a few times with Wannes himself.

Composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist (trumpet, flugelhorn, percussions and timpani drums) Sam Vloemans is a Jack-of-all-trades and his music is difficult to categorize. Born in Curacao, Sam was immersed in a Latin culture from infancy, but he is equally comfortable with jazz, soul and pop.

Luc Vanden Bosch received multiple awards (first prize in the European Jazz-contest ‘Jazz Hoeilaart’, solo-prize in the AVRO-JAZZ contest in Amsterdam, …). He got the chance to play as a free-lance musician in the Belgian radio Big-Band directed by Etienne Verschueren. He has played with Vaya con Dios, Rony Verbiest, Olla Vogala, Johan Clement Trio, Arne Van Coillie Trio, ...

What would have happened if Django had had the opportunity to discover and play Wannes’ compositions? This perhaps ?